Home Depot says lack of Apple Pay support is nothing personal

An outcry from customers who found that Home Depot no longer accepts Apple Pay resulted from an upgrade to the hardware chain’s in-store payment systems.

Stephen Holmes, Home Depot’s director of corporate communications, told Cult of Mac the problem is not specific to Apple Pay. This means that nobody, including Google Wallet users, can make electronic payments right now because the company is working on its NFC terminals.

“We don’t have the capability to accept [Apple Pay] online, and our NFC is currently inactive as we upgrade our systems,” he said.

The problem was initially reported in a post on reddit, with some users complaining that they were unable to use Apple Pay in stores, despite previously being able to.

“After using [Apple Pay] successfully many times at Home Depot, I reached out to them after my last attempt failed,” wrote reddit user burlow44. They replied ‘they do not currently accept [Apple Pay] in their stores’.”

It should be noted, however, that Apple Pay was never officially accepted by Home Depot, although many stores made it possible to use the service. Some customers are reporting that they are unaffected by the NFC upgrade, but this could change at any moment.

It’s unclear how long the system upgrade will take. In an earlier email to a customer, a Home Depot rep wrote, “We may offer [Apple Pay] in the future, but we currently do not have a time frame for this.” Instead, customers are encouraged to use PayPal.

While this is definitely bad news for people who enjoy paying with their iPhone or Apple Watch, it’s only a bump in the road. Today Apple added 24 additional banks and financial institutions supporting the service — bringing the total number of participating issuers to almost 250 nationwide.